Vegan Madeleines

This is huge. For those of you who haven’t heard the buzz yet, recently a French chef discovered an amazing replacement for eggs in baked goods, and it’s pretty mind-blowing. A man by the name of Goose Wohlt introduced the idea to vegan social media, and it has initiated an international flurry of excitement. He’s calling it “aquafaba” (from the Latin for “water” and “bean” – click the link to find out all about it). It’s the cooking water left over when you cook beans, or the brine that comes in a can of chickpeas, for example, or even the water in a box of tofu. Aquafaba makes cakes, cookies and pancakes light and fluffy. It can be whipped with sugar, just like egg whites, to make meringues, French macarons, pavlovas, marshmallows and more, throwing the door wide open to endless possibilities for previously non-vegan favorites. Some of the creative chefs in a wonderful Facebook group I’ve been following on the topic – Vegan Meringue – Hits and Misses! – are using it to make vegan mayonnaise, ice creams, whipped toppings like royal icing, corn bread, chocolate mousse and more. If you’re interested, I highly recommend joining this group, because the community is supportive and we’re all learning from one another’s experiences, both good and not-so-good.

Upon hearing of the wonders of aquafaba, my own imagination turned immediately to an old favorite of mine: French madeleines. These soft, fluffy little cakes were such a treat when I lived in France. But because they are made almost entirely of eggs and butter, I haven’t had much hope for recreating a suitable vegan version. Until now.

Those of you who are familiar with my recipes will know that I generally focus on healthy dishes and baked goods made of whole-food (unprocessed) ingredients. This is not one of those recipes. Although I did experiment with alternative ingredients, I came to the conclusion that my goal this time was to recreate the closest possible approximation of the authentic Madeleine. My recipe uses all-purpose flour, some white cane sugar and Earth Balance vegan buttery spread. (I did try using coconut oil in place of the “butter” and using all whole cane sugar, and it did work, but the result just wasn’t as true to the original.) It’s not an everyday recipe; it’s a special treat. It is fabulous and delicious. Madeleines go perfectly with tea and, for me, they evoke memories of happy days in France, just like they did for Proust in his famous passage in “Remembrance of Things Past.” And in a similar way, when all the ingredients came together, before I knew what to expect, for me, it was the smell of the batter that filled me with excitement and spontaneously brought me back to a visit to Mont Saint Michel when I bought some fresh madeleines from a local bakery.

Green Sage Madeleine Pan Giveaway*

To celebrate this discovery, and because I know there probably aren’t many of you who have the special pan with shell-shaped molds that gives the cakes their distinctive shape, I ran an “AmazonGiveaway” to award a madeleine pan to one lucky winner. The way it works is that the giveaway ends after one week or when the lucky number is hit, whichever happens first. This post was more popular than I anticipated and the number happened to be hit much sooner than I expected, on the day it started. If you missed it, I’m sorry, but I’m sure I’ll run another one in the future, so please stay tuned for more by subscribing to the blog in the right-hand column of the site or “Liking” the Green Sage Facebook page.

Congratulations to the lucky winner!

You can always pick up your own madeleine pan from Amazon; they’re not very expensive. (This is an affiliate link, so I’ll get a small commission if you purchase it through this link, and thank you for your support.)

Use a microplane to lightly grate the zest of a little more than half a regular-sized lemon, until you have a teaspoon and a half.

In a small fry pan, warm the vegan butter over low heat until melted.

In a small bowl, sift the flour, baking powder and salt together.

In a separate medium-sized bowl, combine the aquafaba, sugars, agave syrup and lemon zest. Using a hand mixer or stand mixer, beat until the sugar has dissolved and the mixture gets foamy on the surface.

Blend in the dry ingredients until just incorporated, and then, as the beaters are spinning, slowly pour in the melted butter. Beat the batter until it is smooth and shiny.

Transfer the batter to a Ziploc bag. One easy way to do this is to place the baggie in a glass (I used a stemless wine glass) and cuff the top of the bag over the rim of the glass so it stays open as you pour in the batter.

Squeeze out the air and seal the bag, then chill the batter in the fridge for at least an hour. In the meantime, butter and flour your baking pan.

When the batter is cool to the touch and you’re ready to bake, preheat the oven to 400º F. Cut off one small corner of the Ziploc bag, and pipe the batter into each mold of the pan, filling each well only about two-thirds of the way full. Place the pan in the oven and bake for 10 minutes, until the edges are just beginning to brown.

Allow the madeleines to cool to a touchable temperature before sliding them out onto a cooling rack to cool the rest of the way. They should slip right out of the pan. These are often served sprinkled with a light dusting of confectioner’s sugar, but I think they are sweet enough as is.

Enjoy!

If you’re using a mini-madeleine pan, you might want to adjust the quantity of batter, because it does seem to hold a bit less than a regular pan. Here are the quantities I found to be perfect:

18 Responses to "Vegan Madeleines"

It’s true, Matt, the giveaway is over. The way Amazon runs a giveaway, it ends either after one week or when the lucky number is hit, whichever happens first. This was the first giveaway I’ve run and it ended much sooner than I expected. I’m sorry you weren’t able to enter, but I’m sure I’ll do another one in the future.

As I can’t get hold of evaporated cane sugar here in Switzerland, can you make a suggestions what would be a good alternative? I also wonder: what is the reason behind the different sirups and sugars? Thanks for your answer

Hi Isabelle, you could use regular white sugar in place of the evaporated cane juice, since the traditional madeleine recipe calls for regular sugar. I opt for evaporated cane juice because it’s a little less refined, but the nutritional difference is marginal – it’s still sugar, which is why this is a special occasion treat. If you’re concerned about the use of animal products, look for “vegan” white sugar, as some brands are refined using bone char and therefore not vegan. The reason for different kinds of sugar in the recipe is flavor and texture. Brown sugar and “whole cane sugar” have a little bit of a molasses flavor, while that component has been refined out of the white sugar or cane juice. And granulated sugar, whether white or brown, gives the batter a different texture than a liquid sweetener, such as agave syrup. So the combination helps to achieve the texture we’ve come to love in those pretty little cakes. Thanks for your questions, they were good ones!

OMG, these taste soooooo good! But… they rise and then fall flat (once after taking them out of the oven, once already in the oven). I used cane sugar. Could it have been the baking powder? Or too little flour? I did follow the recipe. I would so much like to get these perfect.

Thanks so much, Mirjam, I’m glad you like the taste! The trouble you’re having is a bit of a mystery to me. I’ve made them several dozen times with this recipe, and never had difficulty with them falling flat. Have you tested your oven to make sure the temperature reading is accurate? I wonder if maybe it’s not hot enough (You could test it with a small oven thermometer that you put in your oven. It should be 400 degrees Fahrenheit or about 205 degrees Celsius). You could also experiment with adding a bit more flour, like you suggested. When measuring flour by volume, there is always a little bit of variation in quantity. If you try again and/or figure it out, please let us know how it goes! Good luck! 🙂

Just made these Madeleines today ! The texture was great – a little crisp on the outside and light and airy on the inside and they had a bump as well ! It was a hit with my family – i added a touch of earl grey in them too and it was wonderful. Thanks for the great recipe – been trying to make these and never succeeded with other vegan recipes.

Made them this weekend, my first foray into aqua faba cooking even though I have about a half gallon of it in my freezer. They were delicious! My guy was stunned to find out it they were made with AF.

I didn’t have a lemon so I made them with cinnamon powder and almond emulsion; i think the amount of salt was just a tad too high for this flavoring, but we decided to think of them as “salted caramel madeleines” and we were fine with them.

Really excited to have this recipe; my poor madeleine pan hadn’t seen the light of day in more than two years!

[…] I had a good reason to start experimenting again, and this time I found this recipe from Green Sage, which used aquafaba. I was already blown away by the batter, and even more so by the madeleines […]

Delicious! Thanks for this recipe, I tried two others before and yours is the winner! I used aquafaba from pigeon peas that I had softened in my pressure cooker (for rice and pigeon peas – arroz con gandules). I thought that might make them too dark but no, they were perfect. I added a half teaspoon of vanilla. Thanks!!

These are absolutely delicious.I don’t have a madeleine pan so i used a muffin tin.THey came out light and fluffy.I accidentally only used half the amount of butter(i used coconut oil) but I don’t think it made a difference.This is gonna be a recipe i will keep coming back to again and again.